NXT-ID Inc. (NASDAQ:NXTD), a technology company focused on products, solutions and services for security on mobile devices, joined Executive Casts to connect 
with investors beyond what can be gleaned from post-earnings conference calls. Myriad subjects are covered via video clips procured from in-depth interviews with Executive Casts, a service that brings decades of interview expertise to the table so that investors can get the most out of learning about company executives, beginnings, goals, products and operations. In the clips below, NXTD CEO Gino Pereira talks his own background and career, how the company came together, and a little bit about NXTD’s transition from its legacy business.
Nxt ID Profile
NXT ID is a company that delivers secure authentication technologies to mobile devices. Lately, that’s really focused on the Internet of things; we see that exploding all over the place, that doesn’t work without authentication. So, we are specialists in providing authentication and credentialing for IOT.
Gino Pereira Background and Career Overview
My background – I’m a British trained CPA, certified accountant, although non-practicing. I have an MBA from the Manchester Business School in England, which is one of Europe’s strong business schools. So, I am a finance professional by training and I’ve worked in a number of mostly technology-based businesses in the Far East, in Europe and in America probably for the last 30 odd years. I came to the United States with a division of a multibillion dollar British corporation as a Divisional Chief Financial Officer and along the way decided that I really wanted to be an entrepreneur. So, I’ve probably done about four or five start-ups since then, none of which have failed and with varying degrees of exit. More recently I worked with a couple of public companies, so, I’ve been the CFO for three public companies in the United States including this one and the CEO of two of them. So, I’ve got probably 15 years’ experience in micro-cap, managing micro-cap companies.
How the Current Company Came Together
We started with a company called 3D ID, which was founded out of our core strengths in biometric technologies, that’s essentially an access control company. Our particular strength there is in three-dimensional facial recognition which is a lot more accurate than two-dimensional facial recognition. So, that was the basis on which we were founded.
We then moved into the payment sphere because what happened was we saw that all these security breaches were going on – a lot of press around big breaches at places like Target, etcetera. So, we realized that our authentication technology could also be used and help towards preventing illicit payments or stolen identities. We had a statistic where more than 50% of identity fraud was due to a lost or stolen credit card. So, we set around developing a smart card that would protect your identity that, then, evolved into looking wider.
We are a security company, both for physical as well as payment security. We acquired a company called LogicMark and LogicMark is a personal emergency response company. Commonly other folks have seen that in the advertisement on television. It was another company’s brand and Trademark about somebody on the floor being unable to get up.
So, that LogicMark acquisition was completed in 2016 and in 2017 we merged with a company called FitPay and that’s a really exciting acquisition for us. We’re absolutely thrilled, it brings to us so many strengths that complement what we have. So, whereas we have certain technologies in the payment sector surrounding digital magnetic stripe technology, what FitPay brought to the table was digital payment technology and the two of them combined is very strong and is a unique value proposition. FitPay also brought within a tremendous management team to help us as a growing company, Michael Lana who is now the chief operating officer of NXT ID as well. And we’re working together to bring new technologies out and, again, there are a number of announcements forthcoming over the balance of this year where the public will see the effect of this merger and how we’re rolling out the application of those technologies.
Transitioning From The Legacy Business
The Legacy Business is more of this 3D ID. Our clients tended to be more government-based and really it was just a question of resource allocation. So, the emerging digital payments business is exploding, IOT is exploding and we have a certain set of core competencies and we have a certain number of employees and a certain amount of cash from which we can deploy. It was simply a shift because that was where we could have the best impact for the technology and resources that we have.
Gino Pereira — Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Nxt-ID
From the date of inception of the Company, Mr. Pereira, one of Nxt-ID co-founders, has served as the Chief Executive Officer and Director. Mr. Pereira has over 30 years of executive, operational and financial experience with technology companies in the United States, Europe and the Far East. He has also helped to develop several technology start-ups as well as served in an executive capacity in a large multinational public company.
Mr. Pereira was Chief Financial Officer and later Chief Executive Officer of Technest Holdings Inc., a publicly quoted defense contracting company, from 2004 to 2011. Technest Holdings operated subsidiaries EOIR Technologies, Inc. and Genex Technologies, Inc. Mr. Pereira is a Fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (UK) and has an MBA, with a specialty in finance, from the Manchester Business School in England.
Mr. Pereira brings to the Board significant expertise in the biometric and software recognition industries, as well as experience in international business technology and extensive management and operating experience. Having founded and/or operated companies in similar or related industries during the past 15 years, provides the board with unparalleled knowledge of the Company and its operations and an understanding of the markets the Company plans to operate in.
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